Assistant Winemaker - Ripon at The Wine Group in Ripon, California

Job Description:

An industry leader, The Wine Group is one of the world’s foremost producers of award-winning wines across more than 60 wine brands and many winery facilities in California, New York, and Australia. Headquartered in Livermore, California, TWG is an industry innovator when it comes to developing, marketing, and selling wine brands beloved by consumers around the world, including Cupcake, Franzia, Benziger, Imagery, Tribute, 7 Deadly, Cooper & Thief, The Dreaming Tree, Charles Smith Wines, and more. The Wine Group believes in producing wine using sustainable and earth-friendly practices to foster healthy land and agriculture for generations to come. The company demonstrates environmental stewardship through its commitment to clean energy and by ensuring that all its owned vineyards are certified sustainable or biodynamic. To learn more, please visit: www.thewinegroup.com.

JOB SUMMARY

Under the direction of Director of Winemaking/Senior Winemaker/Winemaker. Assistant Winemaker’s role will be directly responsible for the day-to-day winemaking and maintenance of wine quality. Key areas of responsibility include support and facilitation between various production teams (including lab, winemaking, and cellar), ensuring priorities and protocols are achieved, cost effectiveness, accuracy, and safety to all performance standards.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Must have a complete understanding of the enological process from grapes through blending.


• Have basic understanding of cellar processing equipment.


• Assist the Winemaking team to ensure wines meet target sensory and analytical quality requirements.


• Direct lab analysis based on wine needs. Must have strong analytical background to run analysis in lab techs absence, or when requested.


• Participates in short and long-term planning of finishing/blending wines for bottling at TWG facilities and Export Customers. Work with Director of Winemaking/Senior Winemaker/Winemaker to establish facility processing and blending priorities according to clarifying, bottling, shipping, and customer demands. The customer demands can frequently change so flexibility is key.


• Writes process orders for distribution to operations for completion.


• Assist Senior Winemaker/Winemaker by writing up process orders, prioritizing work and verifying work is complete.


• Complete blending/fining trials, or other experiments as directed.


• Be able to taste wine at various levels of the winemaking process. Participates in tasting of fermenters, holdback samples against current bottling blends and new proposed wines. Taste inventory samples weekly upon completion of lab running the analysis.


• Verifies and maintains overall wine quality through different winemaking practices. Will require traveling to other TWG facilities.


• Makes up tasting sheets and participates in customer tastings as directed by the Director of Winemaking/Senior Winemaker/Winemaker.


• Participates in creating blends.


• Coordinate wines for shipment as requested by customers. Verify the wines are in the spec per the customer’s request. Assistant Winemaker to work with Senior Winemaker/Winemaker on signing off blend and shipping approvals prior to wine leaving. Including analysis, composition verification and confirmation of taste for quality.


• Work with operations team on forecasting and ordering of wine additives.


• Participates in development of new or restructuring of existing blends.


• Attend seminars, and classes for continual education.


• In the absence of the Senior Winemaker/Winemaker, the Assistant Winemaker will need to fill in and cover the Winemaker duties.


• This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for their job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.


• Must embrace and demonstrate The Wine Group's Vision, Mission, Values of Long-Term Sustainable Value Creation, while being Relentlessly Entrepreneurial, with Empowered People who are Responsible and Trustworthy and keep them in mind when making all decisions.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Must be 21 years or older at time of hire.


• Degree in Enology, or related field.


• Minimum 2 years pervious winemaking experience.


• Passionate about wine quality while being cost-minded at the same time.


• Well-developed organoleptic skills.


• Good understanding of lab and wine processing equipment.


• Must be able to demonstrate ability to lead.


• Ability to set priorities and work independently within set guidelines. Good time management skills.


• Strong knowledge of production operations.


• Self-starter. Must be able to openly communicate with other departments.


• Ability to multi-task, work independently and with a team in a fast-paced, high-volume environment with emphasis on accuracy and timeliness.


• Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills with attention to detail.


• Provide good verbal and written communications to all levels of management, both internally and externally Prioritize while able to adapt to changing priorities.


• Work independently within set guidelines.


• Routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets and fax machines.


• Demonstrated reliability and punctuality, work effectively in team/crew environment, adherence to all safety regulations and operating procedures.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Working environment has exposure to both indoors and outdoors and related. warehouse/production equipment and associated noise levels.


• Ability to perform tasks requiring bending, stooping, standing, and twisting in the warehouse/production environment.


• Able to lift and carry up to 50 pounds.

COMPENSATION

• Hiring Salary Range Posted: $73,400 - $110,000


• Actual compensation will be based on factors such as experience; skills, knowledge, and abilities; education; and other position related factors.

At The Wine Group, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to an environment of mutual respect, diversity, and inclusion. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristic protected by law.

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